Love Out Loud

Welcome! I'm Rachel Terrill. I believe in love. From as early as I can remember, I wanted to know what brought couples together and what kept them together. I wanted to know what it meant to fall in love.

In 2004, while in graduate school to study relationships, I fell in love with Craig Terrill. When he was drafted to play for the Seattle Seahawks, I focused my research on how to make love last in the NFL.

Read Rachel's articles in Sports Illustrated

Watch Rachel's TEDx: Kirkland talk about Love and Stories

Do you know someone who is perpetually single despite being a great catch? How about someone who perpetually picks men or women who are completely wrong for them? Or maybe someone who is in a relationship right now that is going no where?

Why is it so difficult to find someone with whom we are compatible?

When people, especially women, find out that I study love, they inevitably tell me a story about someone in their lives who is either single or in a bad relationship. They want to know what they can tell them to help them along their path to love. The truth is, love is not a science. I don’t have a special equation to give them that will guarantee that they find a true love that will last forever. I wish I did. Can you imagine all of the heartache that might be avoided if we were taught a clear and concise path to and through love?

The media tells us that it’s that simple. We’re taught that love can happen in a moment and that if it is really true love, then we will live happily ever after. Media has taught us that there are a few tricks to finding our true love: We can either look into the eyes of our soulmate and we will know; we can act helpless and wait to be rescued; or we can kiss enough frogs until one of them turns into a prince (this one is particularly dangerous because when you kiss frogs you date frogs...and when you date frogs, you ultimately marry a frog. Then you have to divorce a frog or live with his ugly warts forever and divorces are uglier than the frog you kissed in the first place).

The truth is, the media lies. Most of us are sent out into the world with hearts full of dreams but no helpful tools to help us make that love happen.

So, I don’t have the magical equation, but I definitely have some helpful tools that might help you find someone with whom you really can spend the rest of your life loving.